Friday, January 28, 2011

While we've been pointing out for a couple of years that the Wiehle Avenue Metro station will be a shrine to rad '80s art, we've sensed a bit of skepticism among readers of this "web log." "Surely," you must be thinking, "they wouldn't make the centerpiece mass transit project of the 21st century a stylistic throwback to the days of Miami Vice."

Well, please to be checking out this rendering of the fancy redesigned cars that will greet passengers alighting at Wiehle Avenue.

Sweet! We're pretty sure the fabric for the seats was inspired by the shirts these two wore on the cover of their 1989 cassingle.

Have you ever been to Bangalore, 8:10? Bangalore is by no means more attractive than our Muave Mecca. And the smell there is simply awful. It can only be described as open sewer with a tinge of curry. That might be part of the reason why there are more Bangalorians trying to get to Reston than Restonians trying to get to Bangalore.

In any case, they have a train system as well. No matter how badly Metro or the MWAA do our train, it can't possibly be any worse than the Bangalore Express.

And as to WMATA and WMAA, only Hudgins and Plum with that lot could con the fools who use the toll road and NOT the trains, to pay for it many times over and then pay for the train for decades to come!

And, of course, no one on either of those boards is elected by those who pay, so how's that for taxation without representation!

I am gonna go get me one of them Distrik of Corruption taxation w/o representation license plates and stick it on my buggy

They are what they are == "storm-water management ponds" sucking up tens of thousands of your Reston Association assessment dollars per year for "maintenance."

Elsewhere in Fairfax County, the county takes care of these toxic-waste pools, but in Reston, you have your own duplicative bureaucracy with $200,000-a-year-plus, CEO-inspired titles like "watershed manager," "environmental resources manager," and, get this --- "wildlife manager."

God forbid, we have Reston wildlife decorating and fitting their dens, nests and hovels in other than that Brutalist standard.

A fox, a coyote and an emu in its place and a place (called Reston?) for each.

7:28 just doesn't get it. $540 for the year is a deal considering what we get here. Check out our neighbors to the south and west. $75 month for trash and snow removal, and if you want to go to a pool, 150 more. Even my junior high math tells me we get a lot for our money.

This happens every few months, perhaps when a full moon aligns with Neptune or something, and the tides of Lake Anne shift the equilibrium in one troll's head. Once the tides subside and people stop feeding the troll, he goes away.

Just keep drinking the Kool-Aid and using your favorite word of the decade "vitriol."

Many, too, wanted to move to Jonestown and where are they now?

We don't pay a penny for snow removal and trash is built into the property tax, so the it's deductible.

We can go to a pool (for free) on the very few instances a year we may want to do that and we are not forced to pay for something we don't use. That's one of the many fallacies of liberalism -- force the minority on the majority.

Thank God you can't get your filthy sticky fingers in my wallet!

And don't get so excited over your alleged 60,000 new residents. More than a million new residents will be in the metro area and they all have to live somewhere -- including your Brutalist outpost.

But, with with your obsession with preserving the abominations that now exist, and fighting all of your "charette"-recommended reconstructions, good luck finding places for your alleged new residents.

As an outsider (your neighbor to the east), Lake Anne is one of very few things that make your little town worth visiting. North Reston? How is it any better than the likes of Sterling and the rest of the soulless suburbia? You don't like modernist design? But the particleboard suburbia has NO design to speak of...

Lake Anne has a lot to do with Section 8. In fact, your liberal county government took a tax-revenue producing property that was key to Lake Anne's development (the Crescent apartment complex) and turned into a full Section 8 project using tens of millions of your tax dollars.

Now the taxpayers have lost that revenue source, have to maintain an aged property that was beyond economic vitality and have made Fairfax county itself the largest landlord in the county.

This all goes against all the recommendations from the "charettes" and other consultant reports, paid for with millions more of your tax dollars, that all recommended serious redevelopment of the Crescent property (as the keystone project for Lake Anne with market-based pricing -- following a very successful project like the much more successful Reston Town Center (which isn't even a part of Reston and burdened by the DRB and RA nooses).

Not sure how far east you may be, but there's not much east of Reston in Fairfax County that's worth visiting... Tysons Corner? Vienna? Annandale? Seven Corners? Falls Church? (not including the city which is worth a stop)

"Lake Anne has a lot to do with Section 8. In fact, your liberal county government took a tax-revenue producing property that was key to Lake Anne's development (the Crescent apartment complex) and turned into a full Section 8 project using tens of millions of your tax dollars."

What are you even talking about? So called "Section 8" is a federal program that gives money to private landlords who house low-income tenants. County governments have nothing to do with it. There are at least 9 more subsidized housing programs mentioned (and used) in Fairfax County Comprehensive Plan. No part of the county is spared except Great Falls and northern Vienna (Wolf Trap). I hate them all, all 10, equally, but you have to know your stuff.Crescent Apartments (managed by Quantum Real Estate Management, LLC) have nothing to do with Section 8. And Lake Anne modernist architecture you were dissing has nothing to do with Crescent Apartments except being close.

I like Reston Kool aid. Reston was founded on the principle that there would be a variety of people living here-different races and people with a variety of different incomes. That's why there is such a mix of housing so close together. If you don't like that, then you don't like the very core of what makes Reston what it is. I find it very telling that troll 7:34pm brags snottily about getting free snow removal and a free pool. Nothing is free, so someone is paying for it. Which means troll 7:34pm either is paying for it somehow and doesn't know it, so it's a foolish troll, or the troll is being subsidized by other people while complaining about subsidies, which quite sadly means that the troll is like many many people. Expecting something for nothing, and gloating about it.

The principles turned out to be faulty. Later psychological research shows that putting poor people too close to richer people increases stress in both kinds, and jealousy is one of the causes of crime.

I have no problem with putting different kinds of housing close together as long as it is driven by market demand and not zoning, and paid in full by dwellers themselves, not taxpayers.

Well, 7:39, I can tell you anecdotally that I live close to low-income housing and it's definitely raised my stress level. And I think part of the reason that most people chose North Reston over non-North Reston is so that they don't have to be too close to the unwashed masses.

Besides, I think that most of us at least believe that, when it comes to schools, it's better to have your kids in a school where a smaller proportion of the population receives reduced price lunches than one with a higher proportion.

As for the crazy Troll trying to equate Reston with Jonestown, I can only say, you're stretching there, Bud. Who would be the good Reverend in our community? Bob Simon?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I suddenly feel a strange urge for a cup grape Kool-Aid.

http://rs.resalliance.org/2006/11/05/poor-people-living-in-rich-neighborhoods-die-sooner/"Psychologically, perceiving a discrepancy in social status can cause stress that may affect health, the researchers note."

How about Nature?http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v446/n7137/full/nature05651.html"Emotions towards top earners become increasingly negative as inequality increases, and those who express these emotions spend more to reduce above-average earners' incomes and to increase below-average earners' incomes."

The seat covers in the proposed Metrow train car interiors look reminiscent of the covers on the London Underground/Tube seats. A purple-backed confetti explosion. Maybe that's just for the seats on the Jubilee line there? Right, then!